Frank Zappa: Apostrophe (')/Over-Night Sensation

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All Rise...

Appellate Judge Dan Mancini figures the odds be 50/50 he might just have something to say.

The Charge

"It works like this: If you take any kind of a melody, I don't care if
it's Hawaiian music or whatever, and you play it with a fuzz-tone guitar and a
certain kind of a drum beat, people will call it rock 'n' roll. But what you've
got is a Hawaiian song, so how you gonna categorize it?"—Frank
Zappa

"He took different styles of music, put them together, and pointed out
that there aren't really rules about them, you know? They've been set up, but we
don't have to abide by them."—Billy Bob Thornton

"My first recommendation to anyone who hasn't heard Frank's music is,
listen to Apostrophe (') and Over-Night Sensation because it has
everything you could ever want. It's got rock, jazz, funk, the attitude, and the
humor all at once."—Dweezil Zappa

The Case

In 1973, Frank Zappa assembled the third and maybe most prodigious version of
The Mothers of Invention. It was a big band of terrifyingly talented and
dedicated musicians capable of performing Zappa's complex arrangements with a
maximum of precision, timbral variety, and personality. The 1973 version of The
Mothers included jazz legend George Duke on keyboards and vocals, Ian Underwood
on saxophone, Bruce Fowler on trombone, Ruth Underwood on percussion, and Zappa
on guitar and vocals. They hit the road and kicked all kinds of ass on stages
all over the world. Then they went into the studio and—with a little help
from jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, weirdo vocalist Ricky Lancelotti, and Tina
Turner and the Ikettes—recorded a heap of music that would eventually
become two of the best records ever: 1973's Over-Night Sensation and
1974's Apostrophe (').

This DVD, part of Eagle Rock's "Classic Albums" series, recounts
the making of the two records by assembling a few of the musicians who played on
them, including Ian and Ruth Underwood and drummer Ralph Humphrey; Zappa's widow
Gail and three of his four children, Moon, Dweezil, and Ahmet; Zappa fan Billy
Bob Thornton (The Man Who Wasn't
There); Alice Cooper, who began his career on Zappa's Bizarre Records label;
Zappa guitarists Warren Cuccurullo and Steve Vai; and Rolling Stone
senior editor David Fricke. The documentary melds these interview segments with
vintage studio footage and concert performances by Zappa and The Mothers mach
III (from the Roxy and elsewhere) into a breezy 50 minutes that provide an
overview of Frank's entire career, with special emphasis on Apostrophe
(') and Over-Night Sensation and their important place in FZ's
oeuvre.

The central thesis of the show is that Zappa wasn't a rock 'n' roll weirdo
with an iconic mustache and soul patch who wrote funny songs about eating yellow
snow, but an honest-to-goodness composer in the tradition of Igor Stravinsky and
Edgar Varèse. To that end, the very best segments of the program feature
Dweezil sitting behind a mixing board and, with the assistance of Vaultmeister
and Zappa Plays Zappa drummer Joe Travers, providing close analysis of various
tracks from the two records. These segments forcefully demonstrate the precision
and delicacy of Zappa's compositional sensibilities. Tiny, subtle elements of
performance and arrangement that might occur serendipitously for other bands (if
said bands were extrememly lucky), were carefully and consciously composed,
conducted, recorded, and mixed by Zappa. A prime example is a mysterioso
vibraphone chord layered into the background of the mix in Over-Night
Sensation's "Zombie Woof." It's the sort of thing that only
tickles the subconscious of most listeners. But by adjusting its presence in the
mix, eliminating it entirely on one playback and pushing it more forward in
another, Dweezil shows how essential it is to the overall vibe of the
song—without it, the song is still musically impressive and absolutely
hilarious; with it, it's something more detailed and evocative. Multiply that
little example by one hundred—or, heck, one thousand—and one begins
to grasp Zappa's genius: He understood that the tiniest details (vocals sped up
or slowed down; the way drums entwine with marimba; a synthesizer's timbral
reinforcement of woodwinds and brass) are vitally important to one's enjoyment
of a song. And he had impeccable taste when it came to melody, harmony, rhythm,
and timbre. He was, in other words, not just a musician or songwriter, but a
composer.

Frank Zappa: Apostrophe (')/Over-Night Sensation is presented in a
pretty 16:9 transfer. The image quality varies by source, but all of the footage
is well handled in the digital realm. Modern interview footage looks like it was
shot with hi-def video equipment and is as smooth, sharp, and colorful as one
would expect. Archive footage of the band in the studio and on stage is somewhat
grainy but well-preserved. Compositions are sometimes slightly tight in the
archive material as most of the footage is likely cropped from a 1.33:1 aspect
ratio.

A Dolby stereo mix is the only audio option. It's crisp, vibrant, and true
to the source.

In addition to the main program, the disc contains a wide array of extras.
In what amounts to a collection of deleted scenes, Dweezil offers full
deconstruction and analysis of "Dirty Love," "Nanook Rubs
It," and "Dinah-Moe Humm." Since his analysis is one of the
highlights of the documentary, these scenes are a blast to watch. Not only do
they provide excellent insight into Zappa's enormous talent, but Dweezil's
appreciation of and passion for his father's music shines through, too.

A trio of complete live performances are also housed in the extras section.
We get a 1973 performance of "Montana" from the Roxy, a 1976
performance of "I'm the Slime" from Zappa's appearance on Saturday
Night Live (which inspired him to write "Coneheads"), and a 2006
performance of "Camarillo Brillo" by Zappa Plays Zappa, a band
assembled by Dweezil and dedictated to delivering accurate live performances of
FZ's work in order to introduce his music to new listeners.

"Transduce the Marimba" is a deleted interview segment in which
Ruth Underwood describes the technological surgery her precious marimba had to
undergo so that it could be amplified, enabling her to join the rest of the band
on the road.

"Welcome to the Vault" is a brief tour of the massive collection
of recorded materials left by Zappa at his death, carefully labeled and
organized in the basement of his house. Vaultmeister Joe Travers—whose
full-time job it is to sift through the material (much of it never listened to
even by Zappa himself), ensuring it is preserved for posterity while keeping an
ear out for material worth releasing to the general public—leads the
tour.

A discography contains multiple pages of tiled reproductions of cover art
for Zappa's massive (and still growing) body of releases from 1966's Freak
Out! to the 2006 collection of guitar solos, Trance-Fusion.

Great googly-moogly! Frank Zappa: Apostrophe (')/Over-Night Sensation
is a must-own for the Zappaholic, and a great introduction to the world of Zappa
for everyone else.